Less than one day since Google released their Project Glass video, everyone is talking about it. The objective is met. People talk about augmented reality, immersive apps, wearable computing… People even make fun videos of it.

Since Google wants to start a conversation, here are my views:

- Shades form-factor first. No matter how many photos of pretty models you show, even early adopters will hesitate to go out with that thing on their faces without disguise. One of the glasses killer apps is to ‘secretly’ remind you the name of the person you just bumped into — but it has to be ‘secret’, you need the privacy of sunglasses! By the way,  you would mostly wear them while walking in the street, just as you do with shades.

- Spoken commands are a show-stopper. How many people do you see in the street talking to Siri? I can imagine people having a chat with Siri in the car, far less while walking. You need Thought and Eye control to go mainstream. Didn’t IBM say we are not that far from that?

- Only measured by the interest raised, Google, please pursue by all means! You will get there!! And you will get people to finally upload to G+!! (just kidding)

Once more, Google, you have captured our imagination, just as you did with your self-driving car. Awesome! Thanks for inspiring us into the future.

It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things.
                                             Paul Gilding, TED February 2012

This quote is the only point I like from Paul Gilding’s talk “The Earth is full”.  His other point in the talk is basically that “we can not have infinite growth in a finite planet.” It is a pessimistic view of our world through the lens of scarcity.

In contrast, I find the idea of Abundance fascinating. The talk of Peter Diamandis is an eye-opening cry of optimism. In this decade we will see the development of the technologies that promise a future of abundance like never before. In fact, it is hard to realize that we are already living that period despite the gloomy news in the media. See his TED talk here:

The technologies with exponential growth that will lead us to abundance are, as listed by Diamandis:

1. Infinite Computing (Cloud)
2. Sensors & Networks
3. Robotics
4. 3D Printing
5. Synthetic Biology
6. Digital Medicine
7. Nanomaterials
8. Artificial Intelligence

Those technologies, combined with Open Source and Do-It-Yourself movements are empowering small teams to achieve what a few decades ago only large organizations could. On top of that, techno-philantropist are taking the scene to fund projects that address big human challenges. The Rising Billion of People entering the global economy as they get access to Internet is another force. We should see it as both a potential market and a source of innovation itself, rather than a problem to compete for the “scarce” resources in our finite planet.

More than scarcity of resources, I see two main risks that could jeopardize this extraordinary decade: corruption and social injustice. These are the topics our politicians need to focus on.

• Put innovation before the interests of lobbies to protect existing industries.
• Promote social measures to to make sure we all participate of the riches of our era.

There is more detailed information and inspiration in the book written by Diamandis and Steven Kotler.  I find this an inspiring book for these times.

A genius.
Thank you for making the World a better place and inspire millions of people.

But the area Chrome would revolutionize is the TV, and this is where Google opted for the Android-based Google TV. A mistake.

The TV and the Web are made to each other, and a ChromeTV would have much more impact in the TV industry than what Google TV might have. Why?
- A Web browser is something that any TV-set manufacturer would integrate without the legal issues of a platform like GoogleTV, owned by Google and tied to potential content rights and other patent issues.
- HTML5 and CSS3 provide a superb framework to develop compelling apps for big screens like TVs.
- The TV-set is “fixed” by nature. If it is connected, it will always be connected, unlike a laptop or tablet. Therefore you can live with just a browser on it. No need for a proper proprietary OS.
- The Web also on the TV? What else can Google dream that would better fit their search and ads business model?

Happy 3rd anniversary Google Chrome!!!

The chart via Business Insider seems conclusive on the Google versus Facebook war of who is more relevant for online advertisers.

When people want to buy something they go first to Google. Full stop.

If I want to buy a bycicle to go to work I will go first to Google or Amazon and research. But what if I discover in Facebook that my friend just got an ebike from China, and I did not even know electric bikes existed? What if Facebook shows a banner on a brand of eBikes close to my friend’s post?

The chart neglects the value of discovery. How important is for marketers how people discover their products?

Google is king on search, but social media is king to discover new things. That is gold for advertisers too. Not sure if $50bn worth of it though… At the end I might still search the ebike on Google and check the reviews in Amazon.

Comparing Chrome and IE9, I can only wonder whether Google engineers are genius, or Microsoft has lost its edge.

I fell in love with Chrome since it launched in 2008. It was so much faster, with a minimalist design, the single box for search and URLs, the start page with the most visited pages, the sandbox concept…

IE9 is the confirmation that Google’s vision of the browser was bright. So bright that Microsoft simply copied it… 2.5 years later.  Only it is not yet there. See IE vs Firefox vs Chrome.

Chrome software updates are almost invisible to the user. The first installation is also pretty fast. I wonder how Google is able to do all those installs/updates without ever asking to restart the computer.

I just installed IE9 at home. During install IE9 lists all running programs and services that may conflict, and asks to close them all to avoid restarting the PC.  I agree to close them all, but surprise surprise, after installation is done I am asked to restart the computer because IE8 had some component still running!! How come I had to re-start Windows7 when I install IE9 and no re-start with Chrome? What is the trick? Are Googlers so much smarter than Microsofters?

This chart from WSJ might give a hint of where the brightest talent choose to go.

It is easy to be against nuclear in the middle of the Fukushima crisis following the earthquake in Japan. It seems opportunistic. But it is not. It is just that a nuclear accident HAS happened.

If anything can go wrong, it will. When we deal with nuclear, that means disaster.

The nuclear plant was designed to resist an 8.2 quake. A magnitude 9 quake happened. One month ago ,the probability of a 9 quake followed by a 10 meter high tsunami may have seemed low. But it HAS happened. And the consequences are terrible. It is enough to deal with a natural disaster of this magnitude, to add a nuclear catastrophe on top.

It is not worth it.

There are other types of energies available. Those are less cost-effective today. Mankind has demonstrated that when enough brainpower is put to a task,  we can send a man to the Moon. There is no reason why the same engineering genius that made nuclear power possible, can not make clean energy one day cheaper than nuclear. It is a matter of priorities.

It is time to phase out nuclear power. It is too dangerous. Sadly, we now have the proof… once more.

Goodbye nuclear. We CAN afford something better.

See the new iMovie and GarageBand apps that were launched at the iPad 2 special event, and you can not longer think that iPad is good just to consume content. (See demos around minute 40 to 60). Music creation and video editing gets easier than with a laptop.

Everyone can be a creator now. The age of a few elite artists with the means and the monopolized distribution is over. The long tail of content is going to be only bigger and longer.

Now we can confirm that personal computing did actually change forever in April 2010.

It can not be explained better.

Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com, according to the quarterly results just released.

• For every 100 paperback sold, Amazon sold 115 Kindle books
• For every 100 hardcover sold, Amazon sold 300 Kindle books
• The Kindle store has over 810,000 ebooks
• 670,000 ebooks are priced at $9.99 or less

In just 3 years, Amazon has taken the eBook from nothing to mainstream. Amazon has managed to take the book transition to digital without suffering the pain the music labels went through with mp3. How did they do it? First, with a great device, the iPod of the ebooks. Second, no fear to cannibalize their own business. Third, force publishers to accept the $9.99 price policy. Same recipe as the iTunes ”take it or leave it” $0.99 a song.

Amazon and Apple set the example of companies taking advantage of technology to drive new business models that are changing industries. The Netflix $7.99 a month all-you-can-stream is another bold proposition for consumers, that is shaking the Pay-TV industry.

The right offer for digital content at the right price is not only changing industries in US. It is also driving piracy down. Meantime countries like France, UK and Spain struggle with nonsense laws that not only are useless against piracy, but that are also stopping the development of a legal digital content market.

Legislators in Europe should stop making laws to preserve the status quo. Else US companies will have total domination of digital media by the time old Europe reacts.